Heroic deeds of Medal of Honor recipient 'were exaggerated'

The US Marine Corps has been forced to deny exaggerating the deeds of Sergeant
Dakota Meyer, a former serviceman who was awarded the country's most
prestigious military honour for his heroism in Afghanistan.

Barack Obama presents Sergeant Dakota Meyer with the Medal of Honor back in September Photo: GETTY

According to an official version of events Sergeant Dakota Meyer, 23, ignored the orders of superiors and charged five times in his Humvee into heavy gunfire, killing eight Taliban, allowing 13 Americans to escape an ambush, and leaving his gun turret to rescue two dozen wounded Afghans.

He became the first living US Marine since the Vietnam War to receive the Medal of Honour, which was presented to him on Sept 15 by President Barack Obama in a televised ceremony at the White House. Mr Obama called him "the best of a generation that has served through distinction through a decade of war."

However, while Sgt Meyer's heroism and his deserved receipt of the honour are not in doubt, details of the incident as publicised by the Marines have now been questioned.

In a lengthy analysis Jonathan Landay, an Amerian journalist who was embedded with Sgt Meyer's unit during the 2009 battle in the Ganjgal Valley, said elements of the official version were untrue or unconfirmed.

Mr Landay was working for the McClatchy group, which operates 30 local newspapers across the United States, and the article was also based on an analysis of dozens of military documents.

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He concluded that it was not possible for Sgt Meyer to have saved 13 US troops because only 12 Americans were ambushed in the battle, including the reporter, and four of them were killed.

The article claimed helicopters eventually secured the survival of the remaining Americans, not Sgt Meyer's vehicle, and that there were no statements from fellow troops confirming the Marine killed eight Taliban.

The driver of his vehicle reported seeing him kill one insurgent.

According to McClatchy there were also no sworn statements confirming how Sgt Meyer leaped from his gun turret to pull the 24 wounded Afghans into the truck. It also claimed there was no evidence to support the official account that he had defied orders.

McClatchy said the young trooper had displayed courage and deserved the decoration. But it said there was a difference between the evidence of eyewitnesses on which the award was based, and the version of events that was then promoted to the public.

It said: "Crucial parts that the Marine Corps publicised and Obama described are untrue, unsubstantiated or exaggerated.

"What's most striking is that all this probably was unnecessary. Meyer, the 296th Marine to earn the medal, by all accounts deserved his nomination. At least seven witnesses attested to him performing heroic deeds 'in the face of almost certain death.'" It was not in dispute, for example, that the Marine returned repeatedly to the scene of the six-hour battle and during these acts of bravery was wounded in the arm by shrapnel.

At the time of the award there had been growing complaints in Congress and the military that soldiers were not being put up for the highest honour.

Since 2001 the Medal of Honour has been awarded only three times to living servicemen for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan, and seven times posthumously.

A Marine Corps spokesman said: "We firmly stand behind the Medal of Honour process and the conclusion that this Marine rightly deserved the nation's highest military honour.

"Due to the distance and length of time the battle lasted and the fact that the majority of the participants were in a deadly fight for their lives, and the lives of their comrades, the eyewitness accounts may vary in certain detail, variations that are expected."

Sgt Meyer has left the military and is currently suing British defence giant BAE Systems alleging that a manager mocked his military service when he worked for a subsidiary in the US.

In a defamation case in Texas Sgt Meyer claims the supervisor taunted him about his Medal of Honour by calling it his "pending star status," and that the manager accused him of being "mentally unstable."

In a statement last month BAE Systems said: "As an organisation whose core focus is to support and protect our nation's troops, we are incredibly grateful to Dakota Meyer for his valiant service and bravery above and beyond the call of duty.

"Although we disagree with his claims, which we intend to defend through the appropriate legal process, we wish him success and good fortune in all his endeavours."